


Party Favours

by blackmustache



Category: Firefly
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 11:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmustache/pseuds/blackmustache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <b>_turtledove</b> who requested Mal/Simon or Simon/Inara friendship, with Monty, and someone’s birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Party Favours

**TITLE:** Party Favours  
 **AUTHOR:** Rach  
 **SUMMARY:** For [](http://users.livejournal.com/_turtledove/profile)[**_turtledove**](http://users.livejournal.com/_turtledove/) who requested Mal/Simon or Simon/Inara friendship, with Monty, and someone’s birthday.  
 **PAIRING:** Mal/Simon  
 **RATING:** PG-13.  
 **TIMELINE:** Between the show and the movie.  
 **DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing. Really, I do. Nothing what-so-ever.  
 **DISTRIBUTION:** Poke me should you want it for something…  
 **NOTES:** So, this is my VERY VERY LATE fic for [](http://users.livejournal.com/_turtledove/profile)[**_turtledove**](http://users.livejournal.com/_turtledove/) for the Mal/Simon/Inara/Kaylee ficathon [](http://aintappropriate.livejournal.com/profile)[**aintappropriate**](http://aintappropriate.livejournal.com/). I suck. I hope you like, even though it’s so delayed!

  
Mal looked around at his crew. “Any questions?”

Kaylee grinned. “Next week? But that-” she stopped herself short. “That’s shiny, Cap’n!”

“I seem to recall the last time you met with Monty things didn’t go quite to plan, sir.” Zoe sighed as she spoke. Mal was always getting himself involved in deals that led to punching. Just once, she’d like a nice simple job on a nice quiet planet. “You stole his wife.”

Mal glared at him. “She was _my_ wife!”

“I’ve been noticing how she’s only your wife when it suits you, Mal.” Wash was clearly amused at how easily Mal got worked up at the idea. “The rest of the time she’s anything from ‘evil whore’ to ‘bane of my life’.”

“That’s irrelevant.” Mal spoke through gritted teeth. “This time, anyway. Saffron ain’t gonna be around.”

“Still,” Jayne picked something out of his teeth while he spoke. “You sure Monty ain’t just using this job as a decoy to get you back there?”

Inara rolled her eyes. “What exactly would the point of that _be_ , Jayne?”

Jayne shrugged. “Chance to get revenge.”

Mal hated it when they argued with him about jobs. He was the captain, damnit. He fixed the jobs, they did what he told them. Or that was how it was supposed to go. How come it never did? “It’s a genuine job, Jayne. Now are you in, or not?”

Zoe nodded. “I’m in.”

The rest followed her lead, nodding, though some less enthusiastically than others.

“Good.” He turned to leave, and called back to them as he walked out. “Wash, better get us headed that way, don’t you think?”

Mal was gone before Wash could mutter a reply. He turned and headed back towards the bridge. Zoe followed, after clearing away their dinner plates. Jayne stood and left as well, though nobody was surprised when he made no effort to tidy up after himself before he went.

Kaylee headed towards the door and peered out, checking that Mal was really gone, before grinning and pulling Simon and Inara to one side, while River helped Book clear rest of the table.

Simon frowned a little. “Kaylee?”

“This is perfect!” She was practically bouncing.

“What is?” Inara frowned slightly too. Kaylee only ever got this happy when she was planning something, and Kaylee’s plans, though usually safer than Mal’s, still generally led to trouble.

“Next week is Mal’s birthday! If we’re going to be at Monty’s, he can come to the party!”

Simon immediately got a bad feeling about this. “Kaylee, I don’t know…”

“Oh, it’ll be _fun_!”

“For who?”

Inara shook her head slightly. She had to admit, she was curious. “Kaylee, how do you know that it’s Mal’s birthday?”

The mechanic looked slightly sheepish. “Ain’t much you can’t find out when you’ve got Cortex override codes..” she muttered.

Inara’s eyes widened. “Kaylee, _how_ do you have Cortex override codes?”

“That ain’t the issue!” She brushed the question away quickly. “What’s the issue is, how are we going to invite folk without Mal knowing? I think, Inara, you can be in charge of catering, and Simon, you can be on Mal-guard-duty. And then-”

“Kaylee!” Simon interrupted, a pained look on his face. “I don’t know that I want to be involved in this…”

Kaylee looked hurt. “What? Why not?”

Simon blushed. “I just… I don’t… I think that maybe you had to find use illegal means to find out when it was Mal’s birthday for a reason. He obviously doesn’t want a fuss.”

Kaylee raised an eyebrow. “You just want it to be _you_ that gets to make a fuss of him and you don’t want him mad at you.”

Simon went even redder and opened and closed his mouth a few times before speaking. Ignoring her first comment, he retorted to the second instead. “Oh, so you know it’ll make him mad?”

“I don’t - that’s not - it’ll be fun!”

She’d stopped being so bouncy. Simon regretted knocking the wind out of her sails a little, but he could see that Inara agreed. She was just being more diplomatic about it.

“Kaylee,” Inara’s voice was quiet. “How about you go think about this a little more, and then come back to me later and we’ll see what we can do.”

Kaylee smiled at Inara, after shooting a told-you-so glare at Simon. “Okay. I will. Thanks, _Inara_.” She headed from the room and Simon turned to Inara in surprise.

“You can’t be telling me that you think this is a good idea?”

She shook her head with a sigh. “No, probably not. But maybe we should help her out. Make this as painless as possible.”

He leant back against the wall and sighed a little, nodding. “You’re probably right.” He paused. “Okay. I’m in.”

\---

The job went well, for a change. Went off without a hitch, in fact. Probably due in part to Mal spending the entire week carefully planning every single thing - he didn’t want to be shown up in front of Monty.

This meant that he hadn’t noticed Kaylee’s attitude. She was happier than ever - if that was even possible - and bouncing from the engine room to the infirmary to Inara’s shuttle, having secret meetings with Simon and Inara.

Simon was still unsure he wanted to be part of it all, but Inara had convinced him it would be better for Kaylee if she weren’t alone. Maybe they could even convince Mal to have a good time. Simon knew that last part was debatable, but he also knew it was worth trying. He couldn’t back out now, anyway.

So he was happy with the part of the plan that Kaylee had assigned to him - the one part that he knew he could pull off. Distract Mal. She’d left it up to him as to how, so he did the one thing he probably would have done even if he hadn’t been going along with one of Kaylee’s crazy whims. He called Mal in for a post-job examination.

Which explained why Mal was huffily sitting in the infirmary as Simon poked and prodded him. “Is this _really_ necessary?”

“How would you like it if you ended up with amnesia because I missed that you’d gotten a concussion?”

Mal glared a little. “And how did I get this magical concussion? Nobody hit me! I didn’t bang my head. Nothing went wrong!”

“There’s no harm in being cautious.”

Mal let Simon shine lights into his eyes and take his temperature and whatever else Simon felt like he needed to do. “Doc, you’re acting weird. Are you sure that _you_ aren’t the one with the concussion?”

Simon laughed. “Well, you _seem_ fine…”

Kaylee bounded into the room. “He got a clean bill of health?”

Simon smiled a little. “Yes, Kaylee. He’s fine.”

“Good.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him to his feet, skipping out of the room ahead of him. She popped her head back into the room. “Follow me!”

Mal watched curiously as Kaylee ran away before starting to follow. He gave Simon a ‘do you know what this is about?’ look.

Simon wasn’t looking. He’d started to pack up the things that he’d used. “Don’t blame me. I tried to stop her.”

Mal didn’t much like the sound of that.

\---

Mal’s head was aching from the smile he’d stuck on three hours ago and hadn’t been allowed to let drop since. He was going to read Kaylee the riot act when they got back on the ship, because annoyed as he was, he loved the girl too much to embarrass her like that in front of people.

He’d finally managed to escape the throngs of people for a few minutes. Considering it was a party for him, nobody seemed to have noticed that he’d gone. Probably because Kaylee seemed to have done some kind of rent-a-crowd trick, and besides Monty, he’d never seen half of these people in his life. Not that he minded. It made slipping away quietly all the easier.

He was standing at the fence with a beer, looking out over the fields surrounding Monty’s land. This was always the kind of place he’d imagined living, if he didn’t have Serenity. Peaceful. Far away from everything and everyone.

He glanced around at his crew. They all seemed to be involved in conversation. Maybe he could slip away and not be noticed. Leaving his bottle standing on a fence, he snuck back over to the ship.

Simon was the only one who saw him leave, but he was having trouble getting away from his conversation with Monty. Apparently Mal’s friend was fascinated by the fact he was a doctor, and kept naming symptoms he thought he had, and asking Simon his opinion.

“Doc? What you thinking’?” He paused. “You don’t think it’s something serious, do ya?”

Simon looked back at Monty. “What? Oh, no.” He stood up, distracted. “On second thought, you’re probably dying.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, because if what Kaylee had told him was anything to go by, those extra few seconds would likely buy him a fist to the jaw. Instead he followed Mal onto the ship.

He was standing in the kitchen when Simon got there, leaning against the cupboard and staring into space. Simon stopped in the doorway.

“Don’t be too hard on Kaylee.” He was speaking so softly Mal could barely hear, but it was still enough to make him jump a little in surprise. He hadn’t heard Simon come in. “She just wanted to do something nice for you.”

“Yeah, well, it mighta been nice if she’d considered doing something I’d actually _like_.”

“Mal…”

Mal sighed. “Sorry. I know she did.” He reached behind him and picked up a bottle, offering it to Simon. “Lukewarm beverage that could almost pass as beer?”

Simon laughed and crossed the room to take the bottle from him. “So, all things considered - how’s your birthday been?”

“It was pretty bad.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “Did the ship break and everybody almost die? No?” He smiled as he took a drink. “Then I win.”

Mal smiled a little at that. “Yeah. You do.” He nodded towards the way Simon had come in. “Is everybody else enjoying themselves out there?”

“Yeah,” Simon nodded. “You’re the only one who isn’t.” He paused. “Though I may have mortally offended Monty.”

Mal snorted. “Yeah, that’s not hard. Though now I understand what you’re doing in here. Hiding.”

“Yeah.” Simon wasn’t quite making eye contact. “Yeah, that’s one reason.”

Mal looked up at him and went quiet. He was just close enough to Simon that one step would put him right in the doctor’s face. Taking that step forward, he dropped a hand to Simon’s waist, and before Simon had time to think, they were kissing. Still not thinking, Simon’s arms hooked around Mal’s neck and they pushed back against the table. They didn’t pull away until Kaylee’s voice broke the silence.

She was standing in the doorway, smirking. “ _Finally_ , you’re enjoying your own party.”


End file.
